1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments in accordance with the present invention pertain to convergence of fixed and mobile communication platforms and, in particular, the transfer of multimedia communication sessions including, e.g., audio, video, web, text (hereinafter referred to as “communication sessions”), from a PC or laptop to a smart-phone, tablet PC, and the like, and vice versa.
2. Description of the Related Art
A business person who desires to participate in, for example, a communication session (e.g., a conference, a conferencing session, a communication session, or a service agent call in a call center) but who needs to move to a different location or change the agent servicing the communication session generally has at least three options.
First, the business person can drop the communication session at a first location, travel to a second location, and re-establish the communication session at the second location. Disadvantages of this approach include that the business person will be disconnected from the web conferencing session during transit, unable to participate and lose communication content during this period of mobility, and will have to re-enter their credentials in order to join the communication session at the second location.
Second, at least a portion of a communication session can be transferred to a mobile device depending on the capability of the mobile device and the level of service available at least to the mobile device. For instance, the audio communication may be transferred but not the web communication. The full communication session can be reestablished when the business person reaches the second location. This second option suffers from having a need to re-enter their credentials in order to join the communication session at the second location.
Third, a product such as the Avaya EC500 can be used, which allows call docking and pick up between desk phones and mobile devices. However, this proposed solution requires prior provisioning of the EC500 service.
Disadvantages of the known art as described above includes that session transfers need to be done manually, and that initiating the session transfer often involves user knowledge of information such as telephone numbers, participant codes, web conferencing URL and/or session transfer URL, and so forth. In the known art, this knowledge is entered manually.
Therefore, a need exists to provide convergence of fixed and mobile communication platforms and, in particular, the transfer of communication sessions—web and audio—from a pc or laptop to a mobile device like a tablet PC, smart-phone, and the like, and vice versa, in order to move from at least a first location to a second location.